Monday, January 01, 2018

On my job front, I am still at Dolese. I really like this
company. In February, the company celebrated 115 years of service. The CEO,
Mark Helm, has some great plans for IT expansion in 2018 and beyond. It’s great
to be a part of this time of growth for Dolese.

This year I also begin my adventure into the world of
landlording. We secured our first rental property in Guthrie in August. We
found a great realtor, Brice Semrad, who helped us locate and buy it. Brice
doubles as a realtor and a real estate investor. So he was a great help in
knowing what to look for. I also found a good online resource in
biggerpockets.com and the accompanying podcast. Some people really get into the
real estate investing thing. So far, I’ve enjoyed it. But it doesn’t seem to
hold the passion for me like it does with some. In any case, I think this will
be a good investment over the long run. Real estate, by and large, tends to
appreciate over time. It is already cash flowing. I’m sure it’ll have its own
set of challenges over time. But so far it really hasn’t been that tough. We
managed to get our first renters who started their lease on October 1. They
seem to be very good renters and I hope that they continue to live there for
the long term.

One interesting providence happened while I was showing the
rental property to potential renters. A man walked in to talk to me about my
experience in the rental process. He is also a new investor. It also turns out
that he is a local business owner. He has operated Armstrong Products since
1974. He asked me what I did on my day job, and when I shared that I was a web
developer he asked if I ever took on any side projects. We exchanged
information, and he called me several weeks later. He manufactures and sells
high quality art display panels used for showing fine art at events. He also
manufactures and sells safety tread stair nosings. These are the non-slip
surfaces on the edge of steps on a stair case most often seen on commercial
properties. Their existing website is www.armstrongproducts.com.
If you follow the link you will see their high quality products. However, the
website is admittedly very dated. Mr. Armstrong needed me to create a new
website that concentrates on his art panels. Gallerypanels.com is the solution
we came up with. As of this writing, if you visit it, you will find an “under
construction” message. We have not yet gone live with it, as we still need to
nail down the details with shipping so that customers can order their art
panels and supplies online. I expect that this site will be live in the next
few weeks. I built it using Wordpress with a WooCommerce addin for shopping
cart purposes. It is mobile ready. I’m hoping that it will really help their
sales. If you have a need for an updated website, drop me an email at mike@mikesoutherland.com. I’d be
happy to talk over what requirements you have and help you formulate a
solution.

2017 was the year that I received my first surgery. I had a “clean
out” scope procedure on my left shoulder in November. I have healed up nicely
from that. There is still a little soreness, but it is doing a lot better. But
that was a memorable experience having to wear a sling for several weeks and
not being able to drive for about two weeks.

I’m enjoying being both a grandfather and a father. I’m
watching my grandchildren grow older, while watching my younger children do the
same. This year Paton had his “rite of passage” as he turned 13. This was the
first year we were able to host it at our church, Northwest Bible Church. Two
of our elders, Alan Conner and Alan Loeffler, gave excellent encouraging talks
to Paton. My brother, Jason, and his son, Daniel also shared with him. I’ve now
completed three of these for my sons. Two more to go.

I expect that this year Sheri and I will give another of our
daughters away. Brianna’s boyfriend, Matt, asked me for my blessing for him to
marry Brianna. I gave the blessing. As of now, he has not officially proposed.
But regardless of that technicality they are busily planning for it and have
given us an estimate of sometime this Spring.

Justin and I wrapped up the computer portion of driver’s ed.
In the next few months we’ll work our way through the driving portion. He’s
already 16. It’s been tough to have us both home at the same time to get this
done.

Paton continues to excel with his violin playing. In
addition to his normal recitals, he has played a couple of times at church this
year, primarily during the Christmas program.

Sarah has really
blossomed in terms of keeping in touch with family. She’s been the best one of
the kids in making sure to consistently email and facetime our extended family
in Texas.

Samuel started Trail Life this year. He seems to really
enjoy it. I just hope I’ll be able to survive the campouts with him. I’ll enjoy
the time with him, though camping hasn’t always been my “thing.”

Melody is very close to finishing her “Teach Your Child to
Read” book. She and I have been working on this for quite a while. I have a
Bible with her name on it to present to her when we are done.

David is growing taller and has become quite a blessing in
our family. He is certainly full of life.

In closing, I wanted to mention the passing of a mighty man
of God. Since I came to a Reformed understanding of scripture I have enjoyed
and profited from the teaching of Dr. R.C. Sproul. He left this world in
December, leaving behind many books and teachings for the edification of the
church. I never was able to meet him in person, but I have watched him several
times on DVD and read a few of his books.

Wednesday, January 04, 2017

The biggest news of 2016 is that I became a grandfather
three times! Our first grandbaby, Clara, was born way back in January on 1/5.
Then, at the end of January I inherited another granddaughter when my son,
Michael, married Heather. Addalynn turned 8 this year. Finally, it wasn’t long
after their marriage until Michael and Heather announced that they were
expecting their first baby together. My first grandson, Levi, was born on 12/2.
So, at the end of 2015 I had no grandchildren. Here, at the end of 2016 I have
three! What a difference a year can make.

On the job front, I continued to contract with Dolese until
August. In around June or July the management at Dolese offered me a full time
position. At the same time, they let me know that if I did not accept it, then
I would need to be moving on. After a few weeks of poking around to see what I
could find, I realized that I had a pretty good thing going at Dolese in terms
of the work I was doing and the people I was working with. So I wound up
accepting their full time offer. The pay is a bit less than I was making as a
contractor. But it’s nice to have health insurance and paid holidays and
vacation again. Plus, I’ve been supplementing my income a bit on the side.
Since about October I’ve been doing some Lyft driving. It doesn’t pay a lot,
but it’s fun to see different parts of the city and to meet new people. Plus,
the biggest advantage is that it is extremely flexible on when I can work or
when I don’t have to. I just turn on the app when I want to give rides, and
turn it off when I’m done. For supplementing income it gives a lot more freedom
than a second job would. Lyft has a few perks that I’ve been able to take
advantage of, like a fuel discount at Shell. The better “side job” I have found
was through upwork.com. I’m doing some database programming for a company that
does mortgage loan processing, titles, etc. It’s all about real estate loans
and processing. This is working very well for me, though I’m hoping that as
2017 starts we can pick up the pace and start knocking 2 or 3 of these projects
out a week. They pay on a “per project” basis rather than by the hour. I think
this is a great way to do it. It sure gives me an incentive to work quickly and
efficiently. For both of these “side jobs” I bought some new tools. For the
programming job, I bought another laptop. My previous one was in sad shape. The
power port had become disconnected so that I could no longer plug it in while
working, or even when I wasn’t working in order to charge the battery. In most
cases, that would have been a show stopper right there. But I did find a device
on either Amazon, or eBay, can’t remember, that allowed me to charge a laptop
battery outside of the laptop itself. So that kept me going for a while. However,
in the middle of one of my SQL projects, my battery didn’t charge after leaving
it on all night long. I had located a small computer shop that had a laptop
that was compatible with my existing one. What that meant was that I was able
to take the SSD hard drive and the 8 GB of memory out of my old one and use it
directly in the new one. This was convenient as I didn’t have to reinstall any
of my software, etc. I just popped my existing drive in and continued
programming. Now, I have a laptop that I can actually plug in again. I’m
writing this post on it now. Another nice thing is that the guy took $100 off
the price of the new laptop since I didn’t use his hard drive. The new “tool”
that I bought for the Lyft job is another car. Actually, I bought the car
before I decided to do Lyft. So, it’s not exactly accurate that I bought it for
that purpose. But the timing was pretty close. I bought the car and about two
weeks later started doing Lyft with it. If you read the 2015 Year in Review,
you’ll remember me describing Brianna’s Crown Vic Police Interceptor. Hers has
worked out well. So I decided to get one myself! It’s a 2005, V-8, black and
white, with a long police radio antenna on the trunk. I may eventually hook
that up to a CB. I haven’t quite decided yet. I really like it. It’s got lots
of power and even has keyless entry, which is rare for police vehicles. Doing
Lyft with it has been fun as I get lots of comments.

Church has been going great. As time goes on it’s more and
more clear that this is the best place for us. It’s another one of those
situations where “if I had it to do over again” I would have attended here from
the time we first moved to Oklahoma. The last time I experienced that was much
more drastic in Tennessee. When we first moved out there we were involved in a
charismatic, non-denominational church. By the time we left, we were attending
at Reformed Baptist of Nashville. So, the situation here in Oklahoma is
reminiscent of that, though quite a bit different in that all three churches we’ve
attended here in Oklahoma have at least been much more Christ exalting and
orthodox than the charismatic one in Nashville.

Updates on the kids –

I already mentioned Brittney and Landon having Clara. No
second baby on the way yet (or at least they haven’t told anyone if there is!).

I also mentioned Michael and Heather already having Levi.
His middle name is Malcolm, named after my grandfather.

Brianna has been dating an Air Force guy named Matt. He
seems like a really nice guy and he gets along well with all of Brianna’s
little brothers and sisters (and her older ones too).

Justin turned 15 and is counting the days until he can get
his driver’s permit. Oh no, not that again. J

Paton is excelling at his violin playing. He also turns 13
in April. So I’m busy preparing for yet another Rite of Passage ceremony.

Sarah is doing very well at her piano playing. She’s also
loving being an aunt to Clara and Levi.

Samuel is growing in the Lord. He’s got a great smile and is a joy to be around.

Melody turned five. She also loves being an aunt to Clara
and Levi, but she has found a new really good friend in Addalynn. They love to
play together.

David is David… He’s quite a handful. But he’s full of
personality. He’s still attached to sucking his thumb. He turned three last
August. He’s got a great vocabulary as he listens in on everything we’re
saying.

I’m still learning on the “grandpa” thing. We’re trying to
teach the grandkids to call me “Granddaddy.” I liked “Pepaw,” but my older kids
vetoed that saying that Pepaw could never be replaced. (That was Malcolm that I
mentioned earlier.) But in getting used to the Grandpa thing I’m not certain
how much info my kids want me to share on their kids. So until I get a better
feel for those expectations my updates on them will be pretty shallow, not that
I gave you a lot of info on my own kids either! J
But that’s mainly due to time over conviction. I began this post over the
Christmas holiday and here it is January 4, and I’m just now posting it. Better
late than never. No promises on posts between now and next year, but here’s
hoping that I will.

Monday, February 29, 2016

Tomorrow is "Super Tuesday" for 11 states. Oklahoma is one of those states. In light of the recent passing of Justice Antonin Scalia there is an enormous Republican effort to have the nomination of the replacement for Justice Scalia postponed until the new president takes office. Now if either Sanders or Clinton win the presidency I don't expect that their nomination would be any worse than what Obama would give us today if he has the chance. *However*, and I'm addressing fellow Republicans here, consider well which Republican candidate would nominate a better judge, Donald Trump or Ted Cruz? Donald Trump may do a great job when it comes to fiscal responsibility, but he is inconsistent at best when it comes to the social issues that are so important to Christians, like the right to life, right to bear arms, and traditional marriage. Another thing I'd like to point out: if you are still holding out for Marco Rubio it is my opinion that you are taking needed votes away from the one who has a good chance to beat Donald Trump, the constitutionalist, Sen. Ted Cruz.

Please honor the memory of Antonin Scalia by choosing a presidential candidate who will nominate someone who supports the same issues that Scalia was famous for.

Vote tomorrow, 3/1, for Sen. Ted Cruz for the Republican candidate for President of the United States.

Saturday, January 02, 2016

2015 was quite an eventful year for all of us. In January we started
attending Northwest Bible Church in Oklahoma City. I love this church. It is
Reformed Baptist, with expositional teaching through the scriptures. The music
is traditional with hymns. We are making many friends, and we love our new
church. Northwest Bible Church believes in the biblical doctrine of plurality
of eldership. Alexander Strauch covers this topic thoroughly in his book,
Biblical Eldership. I was included in a group of men that read and studied this
book this year over the course of about six months. We worked through the
accompanying workbook and met together to discuss. The eldership at Northwest
Bible Church currently consists of Alan Conner, Alan Loeffler, and Dwayne
Bolin. I had met Alan Conner and Dwayne before we started attending. However,
over the course of this year, I have gotten to know all three of these men
better and have developed a deep respect for all of them. Alan Conner is the
primary teaching elder. If you visit the church, most likely you will hear him
preaching. He has been working his way through the Gospel of John ever since we
started attending in January. We joined several months later.

When I started 2015 I was employed as a contractor at Chesapeake Energy.
I really like working there. Their environment seems to be a good match for me.
There was a Toastmasters club on the campus that I became actively involved in.
“Chesaspeak” Toastmasters is a great club with a great group of individuals. I
had been at Chesapeake since September 2014. When I left my government
contracting position at Tinker Air Force Base the assurance was given that this
was a “long term contract” with an expectation of lasting about two years.
There were four contractors on our team. In January they renewed all our
contracts for another six months. However, when June rolled around and it was
getting close to time for them to renew the contracts they informed all four of
us that due to budget constraints tied closely to the low energy prices
Chesapeake had to let all their contractors go.
They gave us ample notice of several weeks. I believe it was about 4
weeks if I recall. So I began another job search. I ended up at Farmers
Insurance. The appeal to this new position was two-fold. 1) Seeing the clock
wind down on my time at Chesapeake I needed to find something in order to
support my family and 2) this was an “IVR” position. Much of my career has been
in the telecom industry programming IVR systems, phone switches, call centers,
etc. So I saw this as an opportunity to renew my skill set in a niche where I
already had a lot of experience. The only problem, and I did know this when I
took the position, was that this was much more of an advisory role as opposed
to a hands on programming position. Most of my days were spent on the phone in
conference calls discussing issues that were to be fixed, or the new project
that was going to begin shortly. However, after the talking had been done, it
was a vendor, not our team that got to do the “fun part” of actually coding the
changes. I am a programmer. Since I began my career I have been a programmer. I
have never liked the thought or the duties involved in project management. Give
me a technical problem to solve rather than an administrative one. One
additional side note, and Farmers, if you are reading this please take notice,
this is the only contracting position I have ever held where contractors were
included in an “on call” rotation. Sure, they paid me if I spent extra time
responding to a call. But I didn’t get any extra pay for the hassle of making
sure I was “ready” if I received a call. I felt like I was being treated as a
full time employee. Yet I didn’t receive any of the standard full time employee
benefits. During my final two weeks there, I wasn’t “on call” but there was a
mix up in the schedule where some thought that I was. So I received two calls
on the weekend of my birthday. This was also a Friday night in which Paton was
in a Christmas recital with his violin. I had to apologize to the guy who
called me and let him know that I was not on call. Then, throughout the recital
my mind was on whether I should have dropped everything to handle this call.
Avoiding this type of personal interference is one of the benefits of
contracting. I am simply expendable “paid help” brought in to help solve a
problem. I take no ownership or loyalty to the company as a whole like I would
if I were a full time employee. Chesapeake understood that and operated on
those principles. I didn’t get invited to the company Christmas party, because
I was a contractor. I didn’t get invited to company wide “town hall” meetings,
because I was a contractor. But neither did I carry an on call responsibility,
because I was a contractor. I was good with that. They were good with that. But
at Farmers it seemed they were as inclusive as they could be with their
employees and contractors. I regularly called into remote “town hall”
discussions over the phone. I even took a business trip, as a contractor, with
Farmers. I was scheduled for another trip the first week of January 2016 (next
week) if I hadn’t have left. I am super glad to have avoided that trip for
reasons I will cover when I talk about each of the kids in a moment. Long story
short, after looking for another position for several weeks I received an offer
for a contracting position at Dolese doing web programming in C#, ASP .NET. I
started there on December 18. I’m thoroughly enjoying it. This is good for my
career as I don’t want to be too far removed from hands on programming experience.
I liked the people I worked with at Farmers, but this is an altogether better
match for me. Lastly, news about Sheri and I include the fact that we have discovered
a new “buying club” that is currently in its pre-launch stage. It’s a sort of a
mix between Sam’s Club and Amazon, with a fabulous referral bonus business
model rather than advertising. That’s all I’ll say for now. I’ll have more
details later this month. If you’d like, drop me an email and I’ll tell you all
I know.

OK, now for the part that everyone is waiting for, what’s going on with
the children? Well, in my last “Year in Review” I talked about Brittney’s
marriage to Landon Hastings. Early in the year they let us know that they are
expecting our first grandbaby! Brittney’s due date is actually tomorrow,
January 3. They are having a girl. They’ve already picked out a beautiful name;
Clara Joy Hastings. Brittney’s middle name is Joy. So it’s a great name for
their little girl.

Michael also surprised us this year by proposing to Heather Poencet. He
met her when he worked at Kimray. That was several jobs ago. This year has been
a year of constant transition for Michael. Things are looking hopeful for
Michael landing at a fire station. Stay tuned for more information as that
develops.

Brianna became the third graduate from our homeschool this year. She’s
kept pretty busy after that including working at a Summer kids camp in Texas,
working at a local honey farm (mainly helping the owner with construction
projects), and continuing to further her photography skills. She also bought
her first car this year. It’s awesome. It’s a 2000 Crown Victoria police cruiser.
She doesn’t have emergency lights, as that would be illegal. But she does have
the big black bumper guard thing on the front, a spotlight on each front door,
and the original black and white color scheme. It’s fun riding with her on the
freeway. People naturally get in the right lane and let her by. The specs on
the car are pretty nice as well. It’s got a beefed up suspension system,
engine, and transmission. We haven’t tried this yet, but the guy that sold it to
us said that you can hit a curb doing 40 mph and it will handle it fine. He
also said that you can take a 90 degree turn at 55 mph. That sounds a little
daring, but if it can handle that, then surely it can handle “normal” driving.
We bought it from a guy in a small town that is part of their emergency team.
He bought three cars from Edmond PD and “fixed them up,” providing what he
thought was the best of the three to the small town police dept. Then he
finished the one for Brianna and thought it cleaned up nicer than the other
two. The guy was asking $2000 and Brianna got it for $1900. It’s a great deal
for an older car that runs great with cold AC. As an added bonus he left the
two antennas on top of the car to give it that “police” look, though he took
out the emergency radio.

Justin seems to keep growing taller and taller. He’s got an interesting
“hair look” going on. He’s taken an interest in entrepreneurship. He’s
currently reading The Richest Man in Babylon. He has a drive to excel and I
expect that he will be very successful in whatever business attempts he tries.

Paton continues to get better and better at his violin playing. He
finished “book 3” out of the Suzuki series.

Sarah has continued to improve in her piano playing. Sarah and Samuel
were baptized in October. This was preceded by a six week study that I did with
both of them. We worked through a book provided by Alan Conner speaking to the
meaning of baptism. The title escapes me now, but it is also used at Bethlehem
Baptist Church (the church where John Piper formerly pastored).

Samuel’s update is pretty much combined with Sarah’s above as his
baptism was the biggest news for him last year.

Melody loves looking at books. She’s moved up to “preschool” in both
her coop classes and in her Sunday School class. I’m planning to at least start
teaching her to read this year.

David is two, and full of life. He loves to have books read to him. I
think his favorite is The Adventures of Ping. Toddlers love repetition. So I
think I just about have that book memorized.

OK. Well, this post seems longer than most, and I’m already late in
getting it out. So I’ll end it for now. Hopefully I’ll put another post out
before my 2016 Year in Review. But we’ll wait to see if that happens. Later.

Thursday, January 01, 2015

There were many reasons to celebrate in 2014. Plus there were a few
reasons to mourn. Wanting to start this blog entry off on a positive note, I’ll
talk about the celebration aspect first!

Easily grabbing the top spot in the “celebration” category is the marriage
of my daughter, Brittney to Landon Hastings. This time last year I had no idea
that this was in store. I believe it may have been June of 2014 when Landon
approached me to let me know that he had an interest in my daughter. So we
began to meet weekly to talk through things, get to know each other better, and
to review a few theological resources that I wanted to give him. Brittney was “in
on it” at this point, as she knew that Landon had asked and that we were starting
this process. Everyone involved expected that if all went well the wedding
would happen sometime in 2015, probably in the Fall. Things seem to be going
well. Landon seemed like he was a good match for Brittney. We discussed several
things from scripture. It was a good time to dig into the Word together. Then
in October Brittney informed me that they would really like to get married this
year. In fact, they’d like to get married in about 5 weeks from that point.
What’s strange/funny is that Landon had not really “officially” asked me to
marry my daughter. Of course, we knew that was the end goal of what we were
preparing for. But both of us had an understanding that that would need to happen before we
moved forward with wedding plans. Being a protective dad I honestly would have
liked a few more months of preparation and study with Landon first. But also
knowing that the scripture blesses marriage and passages like I Corinthians
7:36 indicate that “if his passions are strong” we should “let them marry,” I
prepared myself to accept Landon’s “official” request for the hand of my
daughter in marriage. I planned an evening where Brianna watched the little
ones, and I took Sheri, Landon, and Brittney to Red Lobster where we could
visit. Landon could ask me right then and we could all share together in the moment.
We sat down and ordered the food. We reminisced about times when Brittney was
younger. We shared some of our times about Jamestown and the awesome trip we
took there in 2007. But I kept waiting for Landon to “ask the question.” It
never came! We finished the meal. And we awkwardly left the restaurant. We had
all ridden in the same car. I was totally confused and wondered what just
happened. I think there was a communication breakdown between Landon and
Brittney. In the course of our meeting I had given Landon some questions that I
had asked him to respond to in writing. After receiving them from him, there
were a few points of clarification that I had really wanted him to respond to.
So I found out later that while I was waiting for Landon to “ask the question”
he was waiting for me to ask him questions about the answers he had given to my
initial questions. He was seeing that as a necessary step before he asked the
all important question of me. It is true that I would have liked a little more
time to go over those answers and draw a few more details out of him. But I had
just been informed that there were only five weeks to go before they wanted to “tie
the knot.” I felt comfortable enough in giving my blessing, even without thoroughly
hashing out the details in his answers to my questions. Plus, I knew that if we
were going to get started planning the wedding, that critical step of his
asking had to take place. Riding back to the house, we stopped off at Braum's.
I can’t remember if the excuse was to get milk for our family (like we always
do), or if we were going to get an ice cream. But in any case, after pulling into
the parking lot Brittney spoke up and tried to clarify things. Unknown to me,
she and Landon were texting each other in the back seat so that I couldn't hear
their discussion. Bottom line is that he finally asked the question, I gave my
blessing, and we began frantically planning the wedding for five weeks later.
So here we are at the start of 2015 and I have a new son-in-law! He really is a
great guy. I’m glad to have him in our family. I’m confident that he will lead
my daughter and any children they have well. He is a solid believer in Jesus
Christ. I have no doubt that they will be married for the rest of their lives
until the Lord takes one or both of them home.

Since I started with my oldest this year, I’ll go through the list of
updates starting with her. Besides the wedding, Brittney also bought a Mustang
GT this year. It is an 2004 model. Five speed, red with tan leather seats. It’s
in great shape. I’m really fighting the temptation for coveting my own daughter’s
car as I head out to work each morning in my grandfather’s 2000 Mercury Grand
Marquis. Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful that I have a car that works for me.
And it has a lot of room in it. But one of the mistakes I made in my lifetime
was selling my 1997 Mustang when Brittney turned 16. I got antsy with insurance
concerns and didn't research the financial realities the way I should have. It
really wouldn't have been as bad as I had imagined. Brittney proved that by
buying herself a GT, which would have been higher premiums than I would have
had on my 6 cylinder. Oh well, live and learn. I’ll get another Mustang someday.

Michael turned 19 this year. He has had a full year. He graduated from
high school. We had a graduation ceremony for homeschoolers in our co-op group
back in May. He started working this year at Kimray. That has been a great
opportunity for him. He’s really enjoying it. However, his biggest passion is
firefighting. This year Michael volunteered for our local volunteer fire
department: Woodcrest Vol. Fire Dept. He is loving it. He’ll get called in the
middle of the night. When that happens the same son who I have a very hard time
pulling out of bed in the morning when I need to wake him up, jumps out of bed,
pulls on his clothes, and heads out of the door in a flash to “come to the
rescue.” Michael has a heart to help people. So he’s living in his groove when
he can rush out the door to help actually save someone’s life. He’s learning
all about emergency medical care and firefighting. They are giving him some
great training, for free, at the Fire Department. I expect that sometime in the
next year or two Michael may be able to transition into a full time paid
position at a fire station. When that happens he’ll be living his dream.

Brianna is in the middle of her senior year in high school. She’s doing
awesome in her studies. She’s had a bit of a challenging year. Brittney has
always been her best friend. So this was the year that her best friend moved
out of the house when she was married. On the flip side, Brianna finally has
her own room! Brianna has been a huge help with the little ones this year.

Justin turned 13 this year. So that means that we held his “rite of
passage” ceremony. Very similar to what we did for Michael in 2008, Justin
received a book that I wrote for him entitled “Charges for a Southerland Son.”
This was an extensively revised edition based on the one I wrote for
Michael. Justin also received a Geneva
Bible, Family Bible edition. Lastly he received a beautiful Claymore sword with
a custom scabbard. Unfortunately Brittney somewhat “upstaged” Justin with her
wedding. So out of town family, knowing that they would be in Oklahoma for a
wedding in November weren't able to come twice so close together in October.
But Landon and his family were in attendance. I was happy about that so that they
could witness what we do with our sons. I’d love to work with Landon when the
time comes to help him do the same for my grandsons. Justin is also excelling
in his schoolwork. Justin is now taller than me. He has changed in looks quite
a bit over the past year.

Paton is continuing to excel in his violin playing. He’s doing great in
his homeschool co-op. Paton has started drawing very good pictures. He is quite
talented.

Sarah Grace has started piano this year. She’s doing very well. She had
a recital this year at Guthrie’s Victorian Walk in December. She has an ear for
music and has caught on very fast. Just this past week Sarah got her ears
pierced.

Samuel is growing. He’s becoming quite a helper around the house. He’s
also very funny even when he doesn't mean to be! The biggest news with Samuel
is that this is the year that he professed faith in Jesus Christ! This brings
great joy to my heart.

Melody is growing too. She’s becoming quite the little mommy with her
baby brother David. I’m amazed at the vocabulary she has developed. I guess
when you are the 8th child of a homeschool family you tend to pick
up on a lot of words.

David has left behind any concerns we had about him with low weight. He
has really grown. He’s walking all over the place now and saying several words.
This year we were able to move him from our room into the office. We didn't
think it was a great idea to try and squeeze him into the room with the other
four boys. I think he’d wake them up, and they’d probably wake him up too.

For me, this has been an eventful year. In my job I began the year
still employed with CSI at Tinker. But in September I returned to Chesapeake as
a contractor. I really enjoy the private sector, and Chesapeake in particular.
I can relate to the culture there. This year I closed AnswerSoft, but started a
new opportunity. I bought my own business called Life Leadership. It is a
leadership development business. There are a ton of high quality encouraging
materials available.

This was a sad year for our good friends, Bruce and Connie Kessler.
They lost one of their sons this year. Then later in the year, Connie lost her
father. Bruce and Connie are some of the nicest and caring people you’ll ever meet.
We love them and mourn their losses with them.

A former church member and colleague of our pastor, Brian Wilson,
passed away this year. He was pretty young.

All in all, this was a great year. We look forward to what the Lord is going to do in our lives in the year to come.

Monday, January 06, 2014

What is the reason we sing congregationally in the meeting of the
church? I submit to you that first and foremost, it is to give praise, honor,
and glory to God.

“Praise
the Lord! Praise God in his
sanctuary; praise him in his mighty heavens!” (Psalm 150:1, ESV)

In many
other places in scripture we read of exhortations to praise the Lord in song
corporately.A second reason to sing in
a corporate environment is to exhort and build up one another.

“Let
the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in
all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in
your hearts to God.” (Colossians 3:16, ESV)

I
honestly cannot think of another reason to sing corporately. If I have missed a
reason, please let me know in a comment to this post. Now, given that music in
the church is to either glorify God, or to exhort one another, does it not make
sense that we should critically evaluate the songs that are sung during the
meeting of the church?

I have
evaluated songs before in this blog. One brother encouraged me that if I needed
clarification on a particular song, why not write the author and ask him what
he meant rather than airing my concern in a public blog? But should I really
need to do that? If a song is not obvious in its meaning is it a good candidate
for corporate worship? What if I needed clarification from Isaac Watts on his
music? He’s dead. So I can’t ask him. Oh yeah, the subject of his music is
pretty obvious. It is simply Christ and Him crucified. I mean no disrespect for
modern day artists. I mean, they have to make a living somehow. A steady stream
of church pop music puts food on their tables in a way that public domain hymns
cannot. Regardless of our concern for
the need of worship leaders to feed their families, I do believe that it is
beneficial that if a song is proposed for corporate singing (especially in the
church I attend) that as a congregation we consider carefully what words will
leave our lips as we worship the Lord together.

So after having
given my reasoning for evaluating musical lyrics, let’s move on to this blog
post’s spotlight. Today’s critique is Daniel Bashta’s “Like a Lion.” Now, I’ve
been told that this is a very popular Christian radio song. That’s news to me
because I’ve never heard it. But then again, it’s tough to hear it when I never
listen to the radio. Some who have heard it tell me that seems strange to sing
it as a corporate worship song. In any case, I have it on good authority that
it is in the docket for corporate worship in a sanctuary near you.

I’m not
sure what a “Misc” is in music terms, but this song has 4 of them. Those are
separate from the Verses (there are two), and the choruses (there’s actually
only one).

The
entire “Misc 1” is “Now I’m lost in Your
freedom Oh this world I’ll overcome.” I
assume this is the first thing that is sung because it appears at the top of
the lyrics. Yet the word “Now” indicates some sort of causative action. It’s
similar to “Therefore” or “Because of (what was stated previously).” So already
I’m confused, “Now” what? Nothing has prefaced it. Next, what does it mean to
be “lost in Your freedom?” Being raised up in church I can see the capital “Y”
in Your and assume that this is referring to God. Would everyone know that?
Maybe. Maybe not. In any case, what does it mean to be lost in God’s freedom?
We aren’t told. “Oh this world I’ll overcome.” Hmmm, how will we overcome? I
John 5:4-5 tells us:

“For
everyone who has been born of God overcomes the world. And this is the victory
that has overcome the world—our faith. Who is it that overcomes the world except
the one who believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” (1 John 5:4–5, ESV)

Is this
what this song is hinting at? If so, then it left some very important details
regarding *how* we are to overcome the world. This isn’t something we are going
to drum up within ourselves. And if the song is going to make the claim that we’ll…sorry
“I’ll”…overcome, then shouldn’t we be given doctrine to back up the claim?

Next, we
fall straight into the chorus. “My God’s not dead He’s surely alive And He’s
living on the inside roaring like a lion.” Hmmm….why do you say He’s not dead,
but alive? Is it because He rose from the dead, conquering death, hell, and the
grave? Then tell us that! Rather we are left to assume that his god is not dead
with the following reasoning, “He’s living on the inside roaring like a lion.”
You know, that could just be heartburn. It might be good to have it checked
out. Seriously though. On the inside of what? Of me? Scripture reference? And where
does “roaring like a lion” come from? Without further context my mind wanders
to this scripture:

Yes,
there are references to God as compared to a lion. But as we’ve seen above, a
lion can also be representative of satan. To get a full sense of what is
inferred here we need better scripture context, not simply “living on the
inside roaring like a lion.” We don’t worship Aslan. We worship Jesus Christ.

“Verse 1”…
“Let love explode and bring the dead to life A love so bold to see a revolution
somehow” I’m really scratching my head on this one. Typing “love explode” into
my Bible search in Logos pulls up no hits. Wasn’t there something from the 1960’s
that involved a “love explosion.” Nah… And does “love” bring the dead to life
or does Christ do that? And why, O why do we need to sing about “revolution?”
In most cases, revolution is an act of rebellion against God ordained
government. Consider the French revolution. This can hardly be called godly.
Some have called the American War for Independence a “revolution.” Yet, I
resist that label because of its anti-Christian aspects. I believe that a case
can be made for the justification of America’s founding, but that is a subject
for another blog article. But back to the issue at hand, what kind of
revolution are we supposed to be singing about in a corporate worship song in
the meeting of the saints? To say this is inappropriate is an understatement.

“Verse 2”…”Let
hope arise and make the darkness hide My faith is dead I need a resurrection
somehow” Hope in what? That’s a valid question because it hasn’t been stated in
this song. I guess we can assume Christ, because, after all, this is being sung
in corporate worship, right? But why do we assume? What if we assume wrong? Next
there is a lament that his faith is dead and he needs a resurrection “somehow.”
Well, we read in James 2:17 that:

“So also
faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:17, ESV)

So I
assume that there is no fruit of good works in this man’s life, else his faith
would not be dead. So, let’s assume for a minute that we are really singing a
song written by a man who has a self professed dead faith. He says he needs a
resurrection “somehow.” What can possibly resurrect his faith? Ohh, pick me!
Pick me! I know! How about Christ? Christ is the answer to your “somehow”
Daniel. Call out to Him! He can resurrect not only your dead faith, but your
dead spirit. And if He has already done that to you, then why not share that
good news with your music fans?

Falling
into “Misc 2” we are simply told “He’s surely alive Oh He’s surely alive”
Again, assumptions can be made as to who is alive, but since we’ve not heard
the name of Christ, it remains an assumption.

“Misc 3”
tells us “Let heaven roar and fire fall Come shake the ground with the sound of
revival” What is it that Daniel is asking for here? When I hear of fire falling
I think of God’s judgment.

“Then the
Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah
sulfur and fire from the Lord out
of heaven. And he overthrew those cities, and all the valley, and all the
inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground.” (Genesis 19:24–25,
ESV)

Maybe
Daniel is asking for a Charles Finney revivalism? If so, that’s not really what
I’d want in our Reformed Baptist church either.

“Misc 4”
trails off with five repetitions of “Oh He’s surely alive” never really telling
who is alive except for “My God” as specified in Chorus 1. As the name of
Christ is not named we are left once more to conjecture.

Brothers
and sisters, we have so little time to spend in corporate worship over the
course of our lifetimes. Will we spend these precious hours and minutes in
singing ambiguous fluff that we hear on our pop music radio stations, or will
we sing a solemn song of worship and praise to the Lord our God? If I’ve
unfairly characterized this particular song, I’ll welcome your comments. But my
guess is that most people who follow along glibly and sing this in corporate
worship don’t stop even for a second to consider what they are singing. It has
a good beat or a “chord progression” or it’s just fun to play on an electric
guitar. But is that really the standard that we should apply in determining
what we will offer as a sacrifice of praise to our one true and living God?

Saturday, December 28, 2013

The biggest news this year is the birth of David Aaron Southerland. He was born on August 20, 2013. We actually knew we were expecting when I wrote last years "Year in Review" but we had not yet let the cat out of the bag yet. David is our ninth child and fifth son. As I write this he is four months old. It is a blessing to have young children though I am in my mid 40's. I suspect that the "empty nest syndrome" that tends to affect many of my peers will be a long time coming. When David is 20, I'll be 65. In the meantime, God has entrusted Sheri and I with parenting children from 20 years old down to newborn, simultaneously! This year has certainly given us challenges to handle from children across the spectrum of age.

Since I started with David, I'll move on to Melody. Melody is talking very well now. She's quite the little ham! Definitely not a low maintenance child. But she is a joy. We have started attending a homeschool co-op this year. At first Melody wasn't happy with the idea. But she warmed up fast and now asks us about it frequently.

Samuel is growing fast. He's joined Sarah in asking good questions during family worship and Bible reading time. I love to see him learn. I hope to teach him correctly and train him to be a man of God.

Sarah continues to ask good questions. The big question that I love to hear from her that she seemed to ask me frequently this year is, "Will you read the Bible with me?" How can I refuse? Sarah has become a very big help to Sheri this year. She helps out with both David and Melody. Both of them love her too. Sarah loves to draw and read Melody books. She also has developed a love of chess and asks me to play quite a bit. One of Sarah's favorite bedtime questions is, "Would you tell me a story about when you were a kid?"

Paton has improved in his violin playing. Not only did he play a solo at his recital this year, but his instructor asked him to also play along with the younger students so that he could help to lead them in playing their songs. Paton is taking French this year in co-op.

Justin is growing like a weed. He's about to catch me. He's doing well in co-op too. He's taking anatomy. He's also been enjoying playing chess. He's become very good at it beating me and my dad from time to time. He's been playing chess online with my dad, so that keeps his skills sharp.

Brianna is 16 and is currently in the middle of the driving portion of driver's ed. She hasn't seemed quite as anxious to get her license as Brittney and Michael were. I'm thinking that's due to a couple of reasons. First, she doesn't have the money to buy herself a car yet (and I can't afford to get her one). Next, Michael and/or Brittney are always going somewhere and Brianna can tag along easily. But even still, I've spent some time in the car with her, and I expect we'll be doing it more frequently in the coming months.

Michael turned 18 this year. For the past couple of months he's been working as a driver's helper for UPS. He taught himself to play the guitar and has been playing at church. Michael signed up for a couple of 5K runs this year. He and Brittney have challenged each other to give up sugar except for "special occasions." So, even though the "special occasions" or holidays seem to be whatever days are even remotely considered a holiday (like Columbus Day), they are still doing a lot better than they were previously.

Brittney continues to excel in her bootmaking skills. Her first pair of cowboy boots were her own. She attended the boot and saddle show this year. Her instructor said that she should enter her boots in the contest there. But she didn't want to put her boots on the shelf until after the contest. So she opted not to enter. After seeing the rest of the entries, it seemed likely she could have won in her division. She also completed a pair of awesome boots for me this year! If anyone reading this would like to get on the waiting list for boots, she's ready to start taking customers now.

Things going on with me include two new jobs for this year. I started contracting at Dolese Brothers in February and wrapped it up in July. I went from there to CSI, where I am in a full time salaried position as a government contractor at Tinker Air Force base. I'm doing ASP .NET C# MVC programming. I've also got a project going with a friend I met in Tennessee while we were living there from 2001-2005. John Lovelace is a landman for the oil and gas industry. I've been working with him since March on a Windows program for landmen. This will allow users to enter information and generate reports. It's been a slow go, trying to squeeze in time during lunch breaks and some late nights after getting the kids in bed. It's tough for me to do programming during late hours, so that doesn't happen much. In spite of the challenges, I hope to have something to bring to the market within the next month or two. This is a C# ADO .NET Windows application running SQL Server.

Time is flying. It seems that every trip I make around the sun I pick up speed. I can't believe that we've been in Oklahoma for almost eight years. There's much to like about living in this state, though there's always hope that we'll eventually be back "home" in Texas. Because while my kids have identified themselves as "Okies" I'll always be a Texan at heart.